James J. Jeffries, a former boilermaker from Los Angeles, California, was the hulking, square-jawed heavyweight champion of the world, the third to win the title with gloves on. His predecessors had been the bare-knuckle icon John L. Sullivan, the artful and scientific James J. Corbett, and the hard-hitting Bob Fitzsimmons, the person from whom he received the crown by way of knockout on June ninth, 1899, at Coney Island. Recognized for his capacity to ship and endure punishment, Jeffries was a muscular slugger who fought out of a novel crouch, his left hand prolonged out earlier than him.
Lower than 5 months after securing essentially the most prized title in sports activities, Jeffries was again at Coney Island to make his first protection towards Eire’s Tom Sharkey. The tattooed “Sailor Tom” had realized to field whereas serving within the U.S. Navy. A stockier model of the a lot bigger champion, Sharkey stood lower than 5’9″ tall (Jeffries was virtually 6’3″), however he was a rugged warrior. He had shared a hoop with each Corbett and Fitzsimmons and took Jeffries by means of twenty hard-fought rounds in San Francisco in 1898, dropping by choice. After “Jeff,” as Jeffries’s followers known as him, received the championship, a rematch was solely logical.
The second Jeffries vs Sharkey battle was scheduled for twenty-five rounds and would supersede even the unique for brutality. 4 hundred newly put in arc lights hung too low above the ring to light up the motion for the primitive film digicam that may be rolling for posterity. They had been so low, Jeffries later stated that he may attain up and contact them. An electrician insisted they had been essentially the most highly effective assemblage of lights but assembled in a single place by man, equaling the ability of eighty thousand candles. After they had been turned on, they briefly blinded the viewers. The author for The Brooklyn Each day Eagle felt the temperature at ringside was presumably over 100 levels. For the fighters, the outcome was scalding warmth that actually blistered their pores and skin over the course of the match.
Challenger Sharkey was the aggressor from the beginning, swinging away on the jabbing champion, who landed the extra exact blows within the early going. Having fun with a six-inch top benefit and a attain benefit of the identical quantity, the usually slugging Jeffries confirmed extra boxing capacity than ever earlier than in holding his opponent at a distance and utilizing head motion to keep away from incoming blows. He had been coaching of late with the expert middleweight champion Tommy Ryan. Sharkey’s weapon of selection was the left hook, and he related a number of of those to Jeffries’s head within the opening body. When the smaller man received inside, Jeffries leaned all of his 210 kilos upon the challenger’s neck and again. He outweighed Sharkey by 27 kilos.
In spherical two, Jeffries scored a knockdown close to a nook. The Irish fighter made it to his ft and rushed proper again in, solely to hit the deck a second time. However he made it up but once more and, exhibiting nice resilience, landed a proper to the champion’s ribs that was “sufficient to knock a gap in a stone wall.” But it surely was additionally throughout this spherical that Jeffries’ left arm gave out, the results of a earlier harm. For the remainder of the combat, he must rely virtually completely on his proper.
Rounds three by means of seven bore witness to essentially the most thrilling ring motion for the reason that bare-knuckle age. Followers would afterward constantly argue over who received these rounds, with Sharkey because the unrelenting aggressor and the one-armed Jeffries laying again and touchdown the extra telling single pictures. A succession of arduous rights from Jeff within the eighth spherical had Sharkey practically out. A nasty lower over his left eye multiplied Sharkey’s troubles within the tenth and made a scarlet goal for Jeffries by means of the remainder of the combat.
Each combatants confirmed indicators of fatigue by the center rounds, however Jeffries caught a second wind within the later phases and switched his punishment to Sharkey’s ribs, resolving to complete the combat and get out from beneath the punishing lights. With a single blow (sources differ as to the spherical wherein it occurred), he cracked one in all Sharkey’s ribs. “I felt the rib go,” Sharkey stated later. “It jumped in, after which I assumed it could leap out of my pores and skin.” Amazingly, the challenger refused to relent. Because the fighters mauled away at middle ring, a headbutt opened a gash on the champion’s brow; one other chipped a tooth. Sharkey’s proper ear had swollen to grotesque proportions; “a giant moist sponge,” was how Jeffries later described it. Each fighters had been bloodied, blistered, and bruised. The warmth beneath the lights was so intense that a number of folks ringside misplaced consciousness. Jeffries, the ex-boilermaker, later in contrast it to standing earlier than a blast furnace for greater than an hour. But each warriors fought on.
In spherical twenty-four, Sharkey repeatedly uncorked his left hook in a determined bid to safe a knockout over the larger man. However he left himself extensive open, and the champ countered with punishing rights to the jaw that repeatedly staggered the challenger, forcing him to carry to remain on his ft. To begin the ultimate body, Sharkey charged throughout the ring like a horned ram. He walked by means of stiff jabs and snapping uppercuts to unleash his personal livid assault on Jeffries’s cranium, however he left his broken ribs uncovered and Jeffries despatched dwelling right-hand blows to Sharkey’s facet. A long time later, author Alexander Johnston, who was on the combat, remembered the report of these punches echoing by means of the world. One other well-timed uppercut to Sharkey’s jaw practically completed him, however “Sailor Tom” held on lengthy sufficient to remain on his ft. Each had been exhausted and the combat devolved into pure caveman-like brawling, Jeffries clearly getting the higher of it.
As the ultimate bell approached, Jeffries shoved Sharkey to the ground. Turning “a whole somersault” in his fall, Sharkey clutched Jeffries’s left glove and pulled it off. Sharkey then stood up and, as referee George Siler was lacing up the champion’s glove, lunged across the ref to assault. Although there are totally different variations of the story, many contend that Jeffries retaliated with a strong bare-handed blow. Siler pushed Sharkey away, and the bell rang. Ignoring it, Sharkey lashed out with a proper hand that struck Jeffries on the shoulder earlier than he could possibly be dragged away.
Siler awarded the combat to Jeffries, and the gang boisterously agreed, although Johnston later reported that Sharkey had his loyalists, who favored the challenger’s unrelenting aggression. The combat had lasted an hour and forty minutes beneath the torturous blaze of the electrical lights. Afterward, each fighters admitted that the warmth fatigued and dehydrated them. Jeffries claimed to have misplaced twenty kilos in his effort to save lots of his title and he would by no means once more combat beneath such lights, profitable movie proceeds be damned.
–Kenneth Bridgham
